Various recreational games are known to employ elements of chance and elements of strategy to determine a winner from among playing members. Indeed, such games involving specialized cards that can be collected and traded are increasingly popular.
Some of these are playable with collectable trading cards alone. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,662,332 to Garfield teaches a trading card game comprising spell or command cards which enable players to “attack, defend, and modify” the effects of other players' moves. Players create their own library of collectable cards and then play with a randomized hand drawn at predetermined intervals from that library. This adds an element of chance to an otherwise strategic game, ensuring that the progression of game play depends in part on the occurrence of events out of the control of the players.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,435,508 to Tavel describes a collectable card game having literary and mathematical learning components whereby some of the cards to be used during game play are selected randomly by the players. Victory is attained by depleting mathematically calculated “energy” from each of the opposing players.
Some specialized card games also involve the use of a gaming board and various other pieces. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,816,573 to Bolling combines elements of card and board gaming in which instructions printed on cards cause players to give and take a plurality of gaming pieces and tokens among each other until a player attains a specified number tokens. Playing cards are common to all of the game players and selected in the order in which they are stacked in a playing card supply area of the game board. U.S. Pat. No. 8,020,873 to Kuneman teaches a trading card game for two players featuring various graphics instructing each player to “attack” the other. A rolling die is used to progress play, and data values associated with each player increase or decrease depending on points listed on each card when played. The first player who has no more cards to play is considered to have lost the game.
Still, each of the above mentioned prior art involves some element of chance which decreases the amount of strategy to be used in exacting victory. None of those games in existence combine the characteristics of the present invention. Thus, there remains a need for a board game that may provide players with the opportunity to experience fully strategic game play by minimizing the effect of chance on a player's ultimate win or loss. There further remains a need for a game which further combines board gaming elements with various advantages of collectable and tradable elements.